


Things That Go Hiss in the Night

by Akeara4



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monster Falls, Damnit, F/M, Pacifica needs a story, She also gets stuck in the woods, and possibly a hug, eventual dipper/pacifica, i guess thats a plot point, pacifica being scared of her parents, she needs help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 22:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5181812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akeara4/pseuds/Akeara4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no Pacifica Monster Falls fics. I'm remedying that. She needs a story, gosh darnit.</p><p>Anyway, here's Pacifica Northwest's adventure of Being Suddenly Turned Into a Gorgon Overnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Monster falls au where it takes place after Northwest Mansion Mystery, but before Not What He Seems.

It was the one day that Pacifica’s parents were out of town on a business meeting. Not wanting to spend the whole day cooped up inside her manor, Pacifica had gone for a stroll through the town, wearing sunglasses and a hat to disguise herself. It was always a little fun pretending to be someone else for once, and today she didn’t have any parents to catch her in the act.

 

It was a hot afternoon, and there was a big commotion about some special water being sold at the Mystery Shack, so, naturally, she made her way over to the big crowd surrounding the shack and watched as Stan Pines threw water bottles to the crowd while his employees collected money. A well-aimed bottle landed in her hand and she didn’t have a second thought before she took a small sip. It tasted like a fine spring water, but nothing special, not for a Northwest. Still, she handed some cash to the big guy, and made her way back to the town to enjoy her walk.

 

By the time she got back home, she had made a decent rounds of the town and finished the spring water. Her parents weren’t due home until the next morning, so she settled down in the study and read. Hours later, she trudged upstairs and fell asleep atop her bed, comfortably nestled in her covers.

 

A knock from her butler told her that morning was here, and Pacifica pulled her sleep mask off with a yawn. In her tired daze, she didn’t realize anything was wrong until something rubbed her cheek. Her eyes shot open and she heard a chorus of hisses from around her head. She looked down and saw a snake tail instead of her legs, and she let out a terrified scream.

 

Her butler opened the door immediately and stared in shock and fear at Pacifica. He seemed speechless as he looked over her monstrous body. Pacifica looked up at him, hoping to see that she was just imagining this all, or something, but as soon as her eyes met his, his mouth went slack and his gaze went distant.

 

Pacifica panicked. She tried to scramble out of her bed and flopped onto the ground, her tail wiggling uselessly along the carpet. Her hair hissed again and she shivered at the sound.

 

Pacifica hated snakes. She wasn’t scared of them or anything, but they were slimy and gross and they only caused trouble. She knew the mansion had at least one rare snake in a tank somewhere, and that it was super important, but she couldn’t care less about it. Yet, here she was. She couldn’t help but think of how horrific she must look. Granted, she could only see her tail and her torso, which seemed human enough, but her head was hissing and it was freaking her out.

 

Her butler still stood there, unmoving, as Pacifica slowly pulled her body across the floor to the mirror on her wall. She needed to see. She needed to know how horrifying she looked.

 

Yet, as she gazed upon a hundred yellow snakes that had replaced her hair, it didn’t look _too_ bad. She had been expecting worse, after all. Somehow, in all this chaos, that was the one good thing. Her face was still hers.

 

Her tail wacked into her end table and sent it tumbling to the ground with a loud crash. Her butler was still.

 

“Great. Just… great.” She sighed, pulling her tail up closer to her. “Well, there’s no way I’m spending the day writhing on the floor. Move!” She tried to pull her tail under herself, so she could at least resemble standing, or kneeling at least. After several failed attempts, she managed to get that part down.

 

“Alright. We’re making progress.” Her hair hissed in joy. She didn’t even want to know how she knew the emotions behind the sound. “Alright. Now we have to move. Slither, I guess.” She shivered at the word. Gross.

 

She tried to get the tail to move her along, but the closest she got was moving inchworm-style. For now, it would work. It was the best she had. Her butler was standing there, still slack-jawed and motionless, so she inched her way over to him.

 

“Giles? Giles! Are you in there?” She waved a hand in front of his face and then snapped her fingers. Instantly, he blinked and shook his head free of whatever had clouded his brain before looking down at Pacifica and shouting in shock.

 

“Monster!” He yelled, backing away from her slowly. Pacifica tried to look anywhere other than his eyes. She knew enough stories about gorgons to know it was a bad idea, and whatever trance he was in before was probably because of her stare.

 

“Giles, it’s me! It’s Pacifica! I’m just all… gross… and slimy… now…” She trailed off a little to feel her “hair”. It wasn’t slimy, but it was gross and smooth and stuff. The snake she touched licked her hand when she got to the end. “Ew.”

 

“Y-you’re… Pacifica, you’re a…” He stuttered a bit and couldn’t get the complete thought out before he fell back and hit the ground, unconscious.

 

“Did you just faint?” She inched over to him. He certainly looked like he fainted. She bit her lip. Maybe when he woke up, he could think it was a dream? If she got this solved in time, then no one would have to know about any of this. She just needed an alibi or something.

 

Pacifica inched over to her desk as fast as she could and wrote a note out to her parents and her butler.

 

_To whom it may concern,_

_Going out shopping for the day. Don’t wait up._

_Sincerely, Pacifica._

Her parents have never disturbed her shopping trips before, and she needed to find the one guy she knew who could solve this before her parents found out. Dipper Pines.


	2. Chapter 2

Pacifica hated snakes. She hated them more now that she had to survive as one. She still couldn’t figure out slithering, and inching along took FOREVER to get anywhere. Not to mention the hassle it was just getting down the stairs of her mansion. She had called the chauffer to pick her up and to not look at her the entire ride. She offered a nice pay for it, so he obliged easily.

 

With some practice, Pacifica managed to get a little bit of control over her hair. She refused to call them snakes, though. They were like half-snakes, which just attached to her skull somehow and probably didn’t have any sort of organs or digestive systems or anything, so they weren’t snakes.

 

Either way, Pacifica could control them a little. They kind of moved on their own when she wasn’t paying attention, but she could get them to stop now. It was a good use of the short ride to the edge of town. She certainly didn’t want anyone to see her, but she also didn’t want her driver to know she was going to the Shack.

 

So that was how she learned to slither. The long trek to the Mystery Shack was taking forever inching along, so she tried moving her tail differently. She figured out how to slither backwards before forward, and when she actually figured it out, she was probably going slower than when she was inching, but it was definitely a lot less tiring than physically lifting her tail up for each “step” of the way.

 

It was way too long before she made it to the door, and she didn’t even know how to explain herself correctly when she got there. She cringed as she pulled her way up the splintery wooden stairs and then knocked three times.

 

The wait was torture. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but each second she worried that someone else would open the door. Soon enough, though, the odd sound of something clacking across the floor came from the other side, and Pacifica found herself face to face with Dipper Pines. Or at least, most of him?

 

Dipper’s face immediately went slack and his eyes unfocused and Pacifica mentally cursed herself. She forgot about the whole eye contact thing. This moment let her get a better look at the new Dipper, though. His entire lower half was that of a deer, no, wait, a fawn, and his ears matched one as well.

 

Suddenly this whole situation seemed a little bigger than just Pacifica. She snapped her fingers and Dipper blinked a few times, shaking his head free of the trance. Pacifica looked at the ground to avoid any more complications.

 

“Pacifica…?” Dipper looked her over and his ears lowered. “You too?”

 

It was a simple enough question, but it scared Pacifica. How many people had this happened to? Was it just her and Dipper? Would her parents be affected if she went back home? Had the whole town been changed? She hadn’t paid any attention to it on the way. And if Dipper was still… not human, he didn’t have a cure. She was going to be stuck like this. She was going to be a slimy snake for the rest of her life, and a Northwest can’t be slimy. A Northwest can’t be gross. A Northwest always makes eye contact. A Northwest can’t be a monster, not on the outside. Oh god, she couldn’t breathe. She was going to be a monster forever.  She-

 

“Pacifica! Breathe.” Dipper grabbed her shoulders.

 

She took a shaky breath. Okay, a little better.

 

“Are you okay?” Dipper let go of her and tried to get a better look at her face. Pacifica closed her eyes tight.

 

“Y-yeah. I’m okay. What happened to you?” She tried to gesture at his lower half with her eyes shut and accidentally knocked into his leg. Dipper let out a sound that was definitely closer to a deer than a human and jumped back a little.

 

“Pretty much the same thing that happened to everyone else. Magic water.” Dipper frowned at her. “Is there a reason you have your eyes- Oh! You’re a gorgon, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah, I think so.” Pacifica kind of wished he’d invite her in already. Her tail was getting splinters on this porch and she didn’t like waiting at the door, where it was easy to decide to slam the door on someone you thought was a spoiled rotten girl not worth your time or effort. Dipper sighed and pulled her out of her thoughts.

 

“Wait right here. I’ve got an idea.” He turned around and carefully went up the stairs to his room. Pacifica watched him go and found his uneven walking a little amusing. He reminded her of Bambi, just learning to walk. Too bad there wasn’t some snake equivalent.

 

A couple minutes later, Dipper came back down, and Pacifica closed her eyes again.

 

“Here. Try these.” Dipper put a pair of sunglasses on Pacifica’s face. She opened her eyes and looked up at Dipper, who only smiled. “They’re reflective, so I can only see myself right now. You don’t have to worry about putting me in a trance now.”

 

Pacifica stared him down and then a smile erupted on her face when she realized that it worked. She leapt forward and wrapped Dipper in a hug before quickly retreating once she realized what she did. She cleared her throat.

 

“Thanks,” she said, trying to look professional again. After he muttered a quiet ‘welcome’, Pacifca couldn’t really hold herself back anymore. She figured if she didn’t start asking questions now, she never would, so she just kind of let them spill out of her mouth. “Do you, uh, know how to fix any of this? And how many people are affected? And how does this work? We’re going to turn back, right?”

 

Dipper blinked a few times. “Uh, do you wanna come inside? This might take a while to explain.”

 

Pacifica thought he’d never ask.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's so short. I promise the next chapter will be longer.

 

“So then Grunkle Stan sold the water to everyone, and now everyone in town is some sort of monster and it’s basically all my fault.” Dipper sighed as he finished the story.

 

“And the journal thing didn’t say anything about a cure?” Pacifica was grasping at straws, but she needed some hope. Her parents were definitely not monsters if the cause was the water, and if they saw her like this, she didn’t know what they’d do.

 

“Nothing. I’m going to have to go back to the stream and see if maybe there’s any clues, and if not, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He sighed again and pulled his fingers through his hair. “This is all my fault, and I don’t even have a clue how to fix it.”

 

Pacifica let out an annoyed hiss, startling Dipper a little.

 

“Now’s not the time to give up. If there’s anything I’ve learned from being a Northwest, it’s that you never give up until you win. So, let’s go check out that stream.”

 

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “’Let’s’? Don’t you mean just me?”

 

Pacifica shook her head. “No. Let’s face it. You’re a deer-centaur-thing-“

 

“Cervitaur.”

 

“Whatever. The point is that you flinched at me moving suddenly at least three times since I got here. I don’t think you can handle yourself alone in the woods like this.”

 

“And you’re much better?” Dipper tried to pretend it wasn’t true, but he had already figured out how easy it was to get startled when half his brain was ruled by deer instincts. That didn’t mean Pacifica Northwest was a master of adventuring either, though.

 

“I think I handled myself pretty well against a level 10 ghost, didn’t I? Besides, if anything comes my way, I can just stare it down, right?” Pacifica smirked at a battle won. She knew he would need someone to help investigate, and apparently everyone was occupied making a living space for his sister, so obviously she was the best choice. Besides, she needed an excuse to not go home.

 

“I guess…” Dipper frowned and looked up at where his room was. A quick swear echoed down as is Grunkle dropped something. They were all busy up there, and it was true that he probably needed someone so he didn’t go fight or flight at everything he came across… He sighed. “Okay, yeah. Fine. You can come.”

 

Pacifica smiled wide. “Yes!” Her hair made content hissing sounds and then settled back at her shoulders. “When do we leave?”

 

“I’ve just got to go tell Grunkle Stan where I’m going, then we can go.” He carefully walked upstairs to where his great uncle was attempting to build a makeshift fishbowl where Mabel’s bed was. Mabel was sitting in a plastic tub filled with water and watching.

 

“I’m gunna go see if I can find a cure in the woods. There’s got to be some sort of clue by the stream.” Dipper said. His great uncle-turned-gargoyle stopped what he was doing and looked over at him.

 

“Ohhhh no, no way you’re going out there alone in that condition. Last thing we need is some wolf thinking you’re food. Just stay in the shack for now. Maybe it’ll wear off in a day or two, you know?” Stan tried to look sympathetic, even though the fangs and glowing eyes made it hard to do.

 

“Yeah, no offense, Dipper, but you’re kinda a wreck right now.”

 

“I’m not going alone!” Dipper cut in. “I’m going with… Pacifica…” Mabel broke into laughter.

 

“Pacifica? As in Pacifica Northwest? I thought you hated her. I specifically remember something about her being ‘the worst’.”

 

Dipper sputtered a bit. “Okay, well she isn’t the worst- I changed my mind about that, and she’s a gorgon now. She’s probably the best chance of someone coming along who can stop something that’s going to attack me without freaking me out, okay?”

 

Mabel only got this smug grin on her face. “Okay,” she said, slowly pulling her face under the water. “Have fun with _Pacifica_.”

 

Dipper frowned. “Okay. I’ll, uh, be back later.” He stumbled on his way back down the stairs, and Pacifica chuckled a little from her spot in the living room.

 

“Ready to go, Bambi?” She smirked, slithering over to the door. Dipper wasn’t about to let the dig go, though. He trotted up past her and opened the door.

 

“Whenever you are, Medusa.”

 

Pacifica let out a huff and slithered past him. “Dork.”

 

Dipper closed the door behind them and started leading the way into the forest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dipper is not the best at navigation and Pacifica learns she hates spiders more than before.

Pacifica was actually really glad Dipper hadn’t figured his deer legs out completely yet, because her tail was not cooperating. She would have gone back to inching if she were going any slower, but Dipper was just as slow as her, so it was okay. For a long while they traveled in silence. Dipper was navigating, and Pacifica didn’t really want to distract him. These woods were hard enough to traverse when you weren’t looking for an obscure stream in the middle of nowhere.

 

Dipper was trying to lead the way using the journal, but he didn’t seem to be making any headway, judging by the annoyed grunts he was making every time they went past a landmark of some sort.

 

“Need help?” Pacifica slithered over to his side and looked at the journal. There was a map of the forest, and the stream ran through it.

 

“We should be here.” He pointed to a spot on the map very close to the stream. “But we’re not. I think we’re somewhere around here.” He gestured to the other half of the map.

 

“Then, we just head north, right? We’ll run into the stream eventually.” Hopefully.

 

Dipper sighed. “It’s not that simple. Between us and the stream is one of the most dangerous areas in the forest. We can’t just waltz through it.”

 

“Oh.” There had to be some other way, then. “Can we go around it?”

 

“It could take us hours longer, and I really don’t want to be stranded in the woods at night. Maybe we should head ba-“ Dipper’s ears perked up and if he looked like a deer before it was nothing compared to the way he looked right now.

 

“What is it? Is something th-“

 

“Sh!” Dipper looked around and took a careful step forward, then, there was the faint sound of a snapping twig in the distance. “Something’s coming.”

 

Pacifica stayed as still as Dipper was. Maybe whatever it was wouldn’t notice them if they looked like statues. The bush ahead of them rustled, and Pacifica braced herself.

 

Then, a bunny came rushing out and ran past them.

 

Pacifica let out a held breath. “It was just a rabbit.” She looked over to Dipper, though, and his ears immediately flicked back.

 

“Run!” He yelled as a giant spider monster jumped out of the tree coverage behind the bush. Pacifica turned and tried to move quickly, and somehow her adrenaline made her tail work right, cause she’d never seen a snake move as fast as she was.

 

Dipper was running and leaping away faster, though, and it wasn’t long before Pacifica lost sight of him. She heard the scurrying behind her and let out a terrified whimper as she pushed herself. She couldn’t look behind herself to see how close the beast actually was, but after a while the sounds became quieter, and eventually she didn’t hear them at all.

 

She kept going of course. Just because she couldn’t hear it didn’t mean it wasn’t still chasing her. She pushed to her limits and kept on slithering until her body felt like it was about to give out.

 

She found a big tree and leaned against it, panting. For a few minutes she still had that lingering fear that the creature was tailing her, but the silence lasted until she felt a little safer.

 

The forest around her was completely unrecognizable. It looked the same as everywhere else in the woods, and now that she wasn’t in immediate danger, the prospect of being lost hit Pacifica.

 

And then there was Dipper. He had run off without her, and he had the map with all the landmarks and navigation skills. She was alone in the woods with no equipment, no legs, and no way to defend herself against the supernatural creatures that lurked about. As an added bonus, the sun was starting to set, and she had no idea how deep into the forest she was.

 

Great. This day was turning out to be just fantastic.

 

On the bright side, she was the top girl scout of the region when she was younger (her parents would allow nothing less), so she at least had some sort of survival skills to work with.

 

Pacifica sighed and got up from the tree. She started gathering small sticks and stones and made a small clearing to make a fire. This was going to be a long night.

 

It didn’t help that she knew nothing about snakes. Maybe if she knew some snake superpower like always knowing where her home was or water was or which way was East, she could try to use that to her advantage. Right now all she knew was that she was slimy and gross and if it was getting cold out, she couldn’t tell.

 

Either way, she wanted light. She was pretty sure snakes didn’t have night vision, and she didn’t want to test that theory in these woods, so she chipped two rocks together until a spark flew and hit the pile of wood she’d gathered. A few well placed breaths later, and she had a fully functioning fire at her feet… er… tail.

 

Pacifica just had to make it through the night. Then, in the morning, she could head South using the sun as her compass, and hope that she hit civilization eventually.

 

Her stomach growled.

 

Pacifica groaned. She didn’t have anything to eat all day. She could handle it, though. She was a Northwest, and a Northwest doesn’t give up.

 

She leaned back against the tree. She was going to have to stay up all night, too, if she really wanted to be safe. There was no telling what went on in these woods at night, and Pacifica Northwest wasn’t about to get eaten in her sleep. She was going to go down with a fight! Or at least, running from one.

 

Pacifica sighed. Eight more hours. Probably. She never really cared how long it took from sunset to sunrise. That was really kicking her in the butt now, though.

 

Her stomach growled again.

 

Eight. Hours.

 

Nothing to do but wait and watch the darkness.

 

She looked up at the tree she was leaning on. Could snakes climb trees? It would be safer up there, right? She was right out in the open. At least if she waited in a branch, any monster coming by could potentially just waltz on past her and not even see her.

 

Eight hours.

 

She might as well learn how to climb, right?

 

Pacifica took a deep breath and pushed herself up a little higher with her tail. She gripped the bark with her hands and tried to slither her way up to the branch. Her tail was having a hard time gripping anything, though, and it wasn’t long before she fell right back down to the ground with a loud thud.

 

“Okay, one more time. You’ve got this, Pacifica,” she whispered to herself. She tried to use her tail as almost a spring to get her up higher before wrapping her whole tail around the tree and gripping it as hard as she could. There was a cracking sound as bark cracked and fell off and wow she didn’t realize her tail was that strong and she tried again, slowly sliding her tail around the tree and corkscrewing her way up.

 

She made it to the branch she was aiming for and smiled wide. She had no idea if regular snakes could do that, but she was really happy she figured it out.

 

Pacifica wrapped her tail firmly around the branch and laid there, looking idly at the fire. How much time had passed? It couldn’t have been anywhere close to an hour. She sighed and started waiting again, and slowly, without her even realizing, her eyes slipped shut and she fell asleep to the soft sounds of the forest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pacifica learns a little bit about snakes and is consistently disgusted with herself.

Pacifica smelled something wonderful. It wasn’t quite as high class as she was expecting, but it smelled like food and she was starved. She took a deep whiff, and a red blob appeared in front of her, the only light in the pitch darkness around her. It shocked her enough that she opened her eyes. The blob was gone. Just darkness.

 

Three things hit her at once.

 

1)   It was still nighttime.

2)   The fire had gone out, and she couldn’t see a thing now.

3)   There was the faint outline of some sort of rodent running away off the branch, and that was what probably smelled so good.

 

Ew. She was totally going to eat a live squirrel.

 

She sat up and yawned. There was no way to tell what time it was. There wasn’t even the faintest light of embers down by the fire, so it had to have been at least a few hours that passed.

 

Pacifica stretched and one of the joints in her tail cracked. Huh. She had bones there. She kinda always thought snakes were like worms, with nothing inside but organs.

 

Everything was still pitch black, though, and Pacifica didn’t know if there might be some kind of beast waiting beneath the tree, ready to kill unsuspecting prey as it tries to climb down. So, Pacifica stayed still. She didn’t really know what else she could do.

 

She couldn’t sleep now, though, so she just kind of sat against the tree trunk, tail wrapped loosely around the branch, and sighed.

 

She hoped Dipper was okay. He kind of abandoned her, but it was in a moment of running for their lives, so she didn’t really blame him. But now… Now she was stuck in the forest of creepy monsters and mysteries in the dead of night and apparently snakes definitely do not have night vision because all she could see was black, black, and maybe some vague dark, dark, grey forms.

 

Pacifica closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath through her nose. She had a long time to wait still.

 

Then, the red blob appeared again. It danced across the branch and jumped onto another, and Pacifica could smell the sweet scent of squirrel again. Her eyes burst open and it was just black.

 

Pacifica frowned. What was that? How was she doing it? She bit her lip and closed her eyes again. Nothing. Okay, so she breathed with her nose again.

 

The faint semblance of a red blob was where a squirrel packed nuts into its tree.

 

Pacifica smiled wide. It worked! She breathed through her nose harder, sniffing the air. The image of the squirrel turned bright red, and she could see some other blobs in the distance. An owl sleeping in a tree. A fox chasing a rabbit. Mice and squirrels and birds. She looked down to where the fire used to be. A light yellow instead of red.

 

And then it hit her. She was seeing heat! She looked down at herself and only saw a faint purple outline, and frowned a little. Okay, she didn’t know what that really meant, but she would worry about it later. She could find Dipper with this! She could get back home!

 

Pacifica jumped down from the branch and looked around to make sure she hadn’t startled any monsters (she hoped she could at least see most of them with the infrared vision). Then, she headed in a direction. So long as she headed straight, she’d either hit the ocean, the stream, or the town, right? So she just had to keep at it.

 

She kept a hard watch on everything around her, and she saw a sleeping deer. She thought it was Dipper for a second, until it woke and jumped away. Yeah, definitely not Dipper. Regular deer.

 

Pacifica sighed and kept slithering. Her stomach growled greedily and she had half a second of regret for not eating that deer before she mentally slapped herself. Ew. Too gross and too wrong.

 

She was starving, though, and didn’t know what to do about it. She could easily catch a mouse or something, but there was no way she was about to just swallow a rodent whole. There was too much wrong with that. To top it all off, all the plants looked absolutely disgusting to her now, so her girl scout training for gathering nuts and berries was absolutely useless.

 

Her stomach growled again.

 

“Oh just shut up! I get it! I’m hungry. Just stop reminding me already, would’ya?” Pacifica let out an annoyed hiss and she heard a rustle behind her. She turned around as fast as she could, and another rabbit jumped out of a bush.

 

She looked around for any other creatures, big or small. She didn’t want to relive the day’s(yesterdays’s?) trauma. But it was a fox following the rabbit, and she soon found herself staring face to face with a fox. In a moment of fear, she opened her eyes, and the fox stopped moving.

 

Pacifica let out a held breath. She’d put the thing in a trance. Something in the back of her mind was telling her it was defenseless now, she could just eat it, and she quickly shook her head to get rid of the thought.

 

But… she couldn’t move. She kept her open eyes trained on the fox, or at least its outline, and every fiber of her being wanted food right now.

 

But the fox looked so helpless, now that it wasn’t considering trying to eat her. Pacifica took a deep breath and snapped her fingers, before she could convince herself otherwise. The fox shook its head and then took a step closer to her. Pacifica had to scare it away before she decided he looked too tasty. She did the first thing that came to mind. She opened her mouth and hissed as loud as she could, and wow that was a scary sound. The fox whimpered and ran away and Pacifica looked around in infrared, just to make sure there weren’t any more.

 

It was just the soft sounds of the forest and sporadic rodents and other small animals scurrying about.

 

Pacifica let out a shuttering breath. She almost ate a fox. A fox! She gagged a little. She really needed to get out of here, or she was going to become just another monster in Dipper’s book of terrors.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pacifica has to deal with hunger and it sucks. A lot.

Pacifica looked up at the sky through the canopy. The light purple pushing through from her right meant the sun was coming up. Finally. She closed her eyes and smiled wide. She could just head East toward the sunrise, and she would find the town. She took a deep whiff of the air and started heading in that direction, the new hope giving her the burst of adrenaline she needed to carry on.

 

It seemed like another hour or so before it was light enough to go by eyesight, and she gratefully switched to it once it was an option. Infrared vision was cool, but it was really hard to see where she was going when she was using it.

 

So, for what seemed like forever, Pacifica followed the sun. Her whole body felt like it was dragging itself along, which, technically, could be considered the definition of slithering, but still. She was probably minutes from passing out.

 

And by probably, she meant definitely. Her stomach was way past the point of growling, and she was seeing little mice scurrying about as little caviar plates and filet mignon and she knew it wasn’t real and she knew how horrified she’d be at herself for eating any of them, and yet…

 

Pacifica closed her eyes. She just needed to rest a little. And when she lost consciousness and fell to the ground, it didn’t even stir her in the slightest.

 

“Pacifica!”

 

She smelled veal, topped with the finest of spices. There was a big red blob in front of her and she was too tired to open her eyes. She just needed a little… The blob picked her up and suddenly she was on top of it.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you home.”

 

Was the blob talking? No. Blobs didn’t talk. She wrapped her tail around the blob. It smelled delicious. She could feel the tender meat on its bone and wanted nothing more than to eat it.

 

“P-Pacifica… I c-cant… breathe…”

 

The blob was fighting back. It didn’t want this.

 

Pacifica regained a little sobriety. She wasn’t about to fight something for her food. What would her parents think of her?

Her back hit the ground hard and she jolted fully awake. She looked at what happened. Dipper was blue in the face, trying to pry her tail off his windpipe, to no avail.

 

“Dipper?” She realized what she was doing and loosened her tail immediately. “Oh my god, I’m SO sorry.” She pulled her tail away from him, not wanting to be even semi-close to him. Dipper started coughing, holding his throat. It was a minute or two before he could actually speak, and it came out in a rasp.

 

“What was that for?” Dipper slowly stood up on wobbly legs. Pacifica only curled her tail closer to herself.

 

“I-I thought you were veal.” She looked down at the ground. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”

 

Dipper looked incredulously at her. “Pacifica, when’s the last time you ate?” He’d had a bad night, too, but he survived off of a few different berries and leaves.

 

“Before I turned into a stupid snake,” she said, pushing her tail up like a pair of knees and leaning her head on it. “I didn’t want to eat rats and squirrels.”

 

Dipper sighed and took a shaky step toward her. “It’ll be a couple hours walk back to the Shack.” Assuming his sense of direction was right. “Do you think you can last that long?” He already knew the answer. Pacifica tried to eat _him._ It put a whole new meaning to ‘so hungry you can eat a horse’.

 

“I can try,” Pacifica offered. It was an empty promise, though. She couldn’t move much more without some kind of food, and if she rode Dipper’s back, she’d probably try to strangle him again. “I just don’t want to kill some poor defenseless animal.”

 

Dipper frowned. It was the only way. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

 

Pacifica only nodded. Dipper then hopped away, leaving Pacifica by herself. Pacifica closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could see the blob-dipper in the distance, looking for something, and all the other tiny blobs scurrying about. A purple outline made its way over to her and she opened her eyes to look at it. A brown little snake just slithered up to her lap and curled itself up there like it was its bed or something.

 

Pacifica just stared at it. She could see the faint bumps in its sides from what was probably a mouse at one point. She almost gagged.

 

Pacifica never really had a _fear_ of snakes, but she definitely didn’t like them, and having one just chilling on her lap like that was kind of freaking her out. Could she talk to them now? Was she like the queen snake or something?

 

“Can you understand me?” she whispered. The snake looked up at her, almost as if it were annoyed at the noise she made, and just licked the air before slithering back off her lap and going away. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then.”

 

“Hey.” Dipper’s voice scared Pacifica, and she let out a loud and unexpected hiss in surprise. Dipper jumped back a bit. “You okay?” he asked, his voice a little shakey.

 

Pacifica nodded, looking away from him. “Y-yeah. You scared me.” Dipper laughed a little.

 

“I guess that makes two of us. I brought you a… um… a present, but you have to close your eyes.”

 

Pacifica nodded and closed her eyes. She took a slow breath through her nose and saw the red blob that was dipper holding a dull yellow blob in his hands. He placed it in her hand, and she could feel the sticky wet fur of what was probably a squirrel.

 

“Oh my god, is this-“

 

“Just, keep your eyes closed. Pretend its something else. It’s a fancy burrito or whatever. Just, don’t think about it. You need it.”

 

Pacifica swallowed. It didn’t smell bad. The yellow blob actually smelled really great and delicious. She could totally pretend it was something else… totally. But, it wasn’t like she could just take a bite out of it. She would throw up half way through. She had to do this like a snake.

 

She had to swallow it whole.

 

“Look away,” she warned. Dipper quickly turned around.

 

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

 

“Bottom’s up,” she whispered before opening her mouth. She held her breath and shoved the thing into her mouth. It tasted delicious, which grossed her out more, and she felt a funny sensation at the back of her mouth as it widened to let the rodent slip down her throat.

 

She wanted to throw up. She felt so disgusting. She felt like crying. She just ate a squirrel.

 

Once her throat felt normal again, she bit her lip. “Okay… you can look now. I’m… I did it.” Dipper turned back around and walked over to her.

 

“Are you okay?” He held out a hand to help her up. Pacifica wiped tears from the corners of her eyes and then gripped his hand. He pulled her up and she hugged him tightly.

 

“Y-yeah.” It was a lie, but she really didn’t want to deal with that fact. “Thanks.”

 

Dipper returned the hug. “Ready to go back?”

 

Pacifica nodded into his neck. “Yeah…”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pacifica and Dipper get some time alone.

Despite having eaten, Pacifica felt horrible. Her muscles were sore and she was exhausted and she just wanted to be back in civilization again. Her and Dipper had tried to keep a conversation going to keep them awake, but in an ironic twist, neither of them had the energy to do so. It made her jump a little when Dipper broke the silence.

“This is all my fault.” Dipper sighed and looked up at the sky, possibly to tell which way was what. “I found the stream, and now everyone’s stuck like this and I don’t even know if there’s any way to change things back.”

“Well, duh.” Pacifica probably sounded a little meaner than she meant to, but she wasn’t about to sugarcoat everything. “It’s what you do. You go around investigating all this weird junk all the time. Eventually some things bite you back.” Dipper’s ears went back and Pacifica thought that maybe she worded it too harshly. “This stuff is here, whether you find it or someone else does. So, yeah, you’re the one who happened to cause this disaster, but you’re also the one fixing it. If someone else discovered it, I couldn’t imagine anyone else stepping up to the mat.” Dipper fixed things. That’s just how things were. Every once in awhile, it had to be his fault they broke in the first place, and compared to how much crazy stuff happens in Gravity Falls, the things Dipper caused are pretty small.

“I guess you’re right.” Dipper smiled a little and his ears perked back up. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Pacifica let out a yawn, and Dipper echoed after her. “How much longer?”

Dipper shrugged. “Probably two hours or so.” 

Pacifica groaned. “Next time, let’s bring some extra food, okay?”

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m making that mistake aga-” Dipper’s ears perked up again, and Pacifica froze. 

“Monster?” Pacifica whispered, barely above a breath. Dipper’s eyes went wide and he quickly looked around for an exit. Around them was all dense forest, and Pacifica knew the second Dipper ran again, she’d lose him. She turned to him, trying to find another way. She noticed a thick set of bushes. “We can hide,” she suggested, but then she heard the roar behind her and she whipped around to stare a horrifying creature in the face.

And then it stared back at her.

And then she let out a held breath.

The creature stood at twice their height, easily. It had strange, bony protrusions across its body, and a terrifying face that would probably give her nightmares on any other day. Yet, the dazed eyes and drip of drool hanging from its mouth looked utterly unthreatening.

She chuckled uneasily. And then all of her panic dissolved into a fit of laugher. The monster was seconds from ripping her to shreds, and now it just stood there, drooling. 

She’d stared into the face of death, and it probably shouldn’t have stared back.

Dipper started laughing from behind her, and it lasted a long moment until it died down into gasps and chuckles.

“Oh my god.” Pacifica gripped her sides as she wheezed the last of the laughs out. “We almost died.”

One of the rabbits nearby scurried up to the monster and sniffed its foot.

“Yeah. I guess he’s not much of a threat anymore.” Dipper smiled. “Thanks.”

Pacifica smiled at him proudly. “It was nothing. We should probably get back-” Dipper’s smile faded and his body went lax. “Oh no. Dipper?” She waved her hand in front of his face, hoping that would somehow wake him back up.

She couldn’t snap her fingers this time. Not with the monster right there. So, naturally, she would just have to take Dipper far enough away to break him out of his trance without waking the monster at the same time. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Pacifica pushed and pulled Dipper along, and she never knew how freaking heavy deer were. They always looked so light on their feet, so it made sense that they were light to carry.

“Ugh, move already!” she groaned, pushing against his back. Dipper suddenly started walking forward. Pacifica fell to the ground, now that she wasn’t leaning against him anymore, and looked up in shock. If Dipper was out of the trance, the monster would be, too. “Dipper?”

No response. Dipper just kept walking forward at a steady pace.

Pacifica raced ahead of him to stop him. When she saw his face, it was still dazed and unmoving.

“Stop.” Dipper stopped on command, still in his trance.

Pacifica wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t thought the trances she put people in had any other side effects, but it didn’t take much to figure out when you were accidentally mind controlling someone. The moral implications aside, she had to get far enough away before she could snap Dipper out if it, so she might as well use it to her advantage. She could apologize later.

“Follow me,” she said, and started slithering in the general direction they’d been heading before. Dipper followed behind her at the same pace as her, and he was walking like a natural deer. That stumped Pacifica for a moment. 

Maybe the difficulty of most of this stuff was all in her head. What would happen if she just gave up on her human self holding everything back, and gave in to the snake instincts and stuff? Would she be able to move as fast as she had when she was running away the day before? Could she control who got put into a trance or not? 

And then the bad possibilities came rushing in, blocking out the hopeful ones. If she gave in, she’d be a monster. She’d be eating animals and killing and she’d probably try to eat Dipper. She’d be just as terrifying as the monster they were escaping. 

She’d be even more terrifying. One look and you’d be stuck. One look and you’d be lunch.

Pacifica shivered. Never. Never in a million years. Dipper was going to fix this, and she’d be back to normal and she’d never have to see a snake again.

The snap of a twig behind her caught her attention and she realized just how long she’d been traveling. They were way past the point of the monster hearing her snap.

She took a deep breath and snapped her fingers, closing her eyes tightly.

Dipper let out a gasp and stumbled a bit. Pacifica watched the red blob regain its balance and she smiled a little.

“What happened? Where are we?” Dipper gasped. “Oh yeah! The creature! You stopped it, and then…” He looked around. “How’d we get here?”

“I accidentally put you in a trance, too, so we went far enough away to pull you out of it, but not the monster,” Pacifica looked down at the ground.

“Wait…” Pacifica heard the familiar sound of pages being flipped through. “You figured out how to mind-control me?” A quick scribble into his journal and then it was slammed shut again. “That’s amazing! How’d you do it?”

Pacifica felt heat rise to her cheeks. “You’re not scared? I can just take away someone’s free will! That’s not something you should be excited about.”

Dipper shrugged. “You said it yourself. Being interested in scary stuff is what I do, right? Besides, we’re that much closer to the shack, and we got away from two dangerous creatures because of our weird new abilities, so they can’t be all that bad.”

Pacifica smiled a little. “Thanks. I think.” 

Dipper continued on ahead of her. “I see some landmarks I recognise, so we should be there in less than an hour. I know I’m ready for some real food.”

Pacifica laughed a little and followed behind him. Her stomach grumbled at the mention of more food, but she was excited to almost be back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo. Sorry for the wait on this chapter. I kinda fell out of the gravity falls fandom for a bit, and was working on Rick And Morty fanfics and my own original works for a while. A random comment got me motivated to start writing this again, so thank you random commenter dude! Anyway, hopefully I'll get back into writing for this regularly. peace, yo


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mabel and Pacifica become tail buddies.

Pacifica had never been as relieved to see the Mystery Shack as she was now. The exhaustion tugged at her consciousness and the hunger tugged at her stomach and for a good minute and a half, she was convinced it was just a mirage she was seeing through the trees. But once she felt her tail slide over the splintered, uneven stairs to the door, she knew it was real.

 

Dipper must have felt the same, because he only got that last burst of energy when they were in the yard, ten feet from his home. 

 

Of course, they were greeted by a dark emptiness when they walked in. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, this worried Pacifica, but she was way too tired and hungry to care right now. Dipper plopped down onto the couch, and Pacifica ended up right beside him. It was probably thirty seconds before they fell asleep.

 

Pacifica felt something shift on her legs. She figured it was the butler just adjusting her sheets or something, and smiled at the warmth. She made herself more comfortable and fell back asleep. If he wanted to wake her up, he would’ve actually tried to.

 

“Hey lovebirds! Food’s ready.” A gravelly, hoarse voice ripped Pacifica out of her sleep. She blinked her eyes open and looked up at the grey monster glaring down at her and immediately scrambled in shock. The monster held his hands out. “Woah! Calm down. It’s just me, Stan.”

 

“Calm down, Pacifica,” said a strangled voice from behind her. She loosened her tail and let Dipper breathe.

 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” She composed herself and untangled her tail from Dipper’s legs. Stan laughed.

 

“Whatever. If you hadn’t held him there,  _ Flighty _ here would’a jumped out the window or something, so we’ll call it even.” He held out a hand to shake. Pacifica smiled a little and shook his hand. 

 

“Thanks.”

 

Dipper stretched and hopped down to the floor before his face lit up. 

 

“Grunkle Stan, did you say there was food?” 

 

“Yeah. It’s in the kit-” Before he could finish the sentence, Pacifica and Dipper were both rushing to the kitchen table and scraping as much food as they could into their mouths. “-chen.”

 

Mabel was waiting in the kitchen, in an aquarium atop a red wagon.

 

“You guys sure freaked everyone out,” she said as she stuffed some fish in her mouth. “Grunkle Stan and Soos went crazy looking for you all night. You should’ve seen their faces when they got home and you guys were just cuddled up on the couch. They were like blaaah!” She made an exaggerated surprised face and waved her hands in the air, sprinkling some water on Dipper and Pacifica. 

 

“Oh, geez. I didn’t want to worry you guys like that.” Dipper’s ears flattened. Mabel just blew a raspberry at him. 

 

“I wasn’t worried. You can handle yourself out there. I’m sure dealing with Pacifica was the hardest part.” She shoved another fish in her mouth. 

 

“I’ll have you know, I had the most girl scout badges in the region. I held my own just fine.” Pacifica figured telling everyone that they nearly died several times would probably make them ten times more worried, so making light of the situation was probably the best. 

 

“See what I mean?” Mabel giggled and Dipper jokingly punched her arm. 

 

“She’s not that bad!”

 

Pacifica puffed out her cheeks in embarrassment. “I’m right here, you know.”

 

“I know. I just don’t care.” Mabel laughed and splashed a little water at Pacifica playfully. 

 

It took Pacifica a moment to realize that Mabel had been joking this whole time. 

 

“Oh.” Pacifica reached into Mabel’s tank and splashed her back. Mabel giggled and then gasped in shock, as though she had some earth-breaking epiphany. 

 

“Oh my gosh! We’re tail buddies!” 

 

“Tail buddies?” 

 

“Yeah! Look!” Mabel flipped around so her pink mermaid tail was hanging out the top of the tank. “We have matching tails!”

 

“But they look nothing alike.” Pacifica turned around and balanced on her hands to wiggle her white snake tail at her. 

 

“That doesn’t matter. They’re both so pretty, so they match,” Mabel said like it was the simple truth. Then, she reached down and grabbed the edge of Pacifica’s tail and pulled it up into the water. Pacifica let out a yelp of surprise and fell flat on her back. Her hair freaked out in a string of hisses and Mabel laughed, feeling her tail. 

 

“Ow, what was that for?”

 

“It's so smooth.” Mabel stuck her tongue out in concentration as she felt across the length of the tail. “I thought snakes were supposed to be slimy.”

 

“So did I. Now can you unhand my tail already?” Pacifica just kind of laid on the floor, waiting for Mabel to let her go. Her hair continued hissing in annoyance amongst themselves. 

 

“Ooo, can I name them?” Mabel let go of Pacifica’s tail and instead leaned as far over the edge of her tank as she could without tipping the thing over. 

 

“Name who?” Pacifica slowly straightened herself up and tried to calm her hair down. 

 

“Your snakes, dummy!” Mabel reached out and pet one of the snakes on Pacifica’s head. “They’re so cute!”

 

“They’re snakes!” Pacifica said exasperatedly. “They’re gross and slimy!”

 

“This one’s Bilberto The Great,” Mabel said as she completely ignored Pacifica’s protests. She pet another one and it purred. Well, it hissed, but it sounded almost like a purr. Mabel’s face split in a smile and she scratched under its head. “This one’s General Scratchy McFluffyPaws.” 

 

Pacifica huffed. “You can’t call him that. He’s not a  _ cat.”  _

 

“Well he purrs like one!”

 

“That doesn’t matter.”

 

“Yes, it does.”

 

“No, it doesn’t.”

 

“His name is General Scratchy and that’s final.” Mabel folded her arms with an implied finality. General Scratchy and his army hissed indignantly as Pacifica groaned. 

 

“Fine, okay. But no naming any more of my snakes, okay?”

 

Mabel let out a colossal sigh. “Okay! But you have to name the rest. I don’t want them all getting jealous of the General just because he has a name.”

 

“Ugh, fine. I’ll name them later.” Pacifica laid back against the table. She jumped a little when she heard Dipper’s voice from behind her. She’d almost forgotten he was there.

 

“So can you feel them, or control them, or anything?” Dipper had this awestruck scientist look across his face, and Pacifica knew this whole conversation was going to expand his journal entries on gorgons by a  _ lot _ .

 

“I guess. They kinda do what they want, but if I told them to do something, I’m sure they would.” She reached up and pet one of the snakes lightly, in a motion similar to using her finger to detangle her hair. Vaguely, in the back of her head, she could feel it, but it was a dull feeling, like it was through layers of clothing or something. “And I can feel them a little.” 

 

“Fascinating. Do you think they can eat?” Dipper looked like he was in an ongoing tug-of-war between running to get a pen and paper and asking ten million more questions.

 

“Eww, what if they poop in your brain!” Mabel burst in. Pacifica shivered in disgust at the image. 

 

“Let’s not try that, okay?”

 

Their conversation was interrupted by Grunkle Stan entering the room and clearing his throat.

 

“Alright, so you kids are all fed and slept and whatever. Mind telling me what in the world you were doing all night?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap. I didnt know where to end this chapter. 
> 
> I was writing on my phone at work instead of at home on the computer, and the googledoc app doesnt have page breaks. Normally, I just write a 3 page chapter, and when im at like 2 and a half pages, i figure out where to round it off. This time, I had nothing to go by, and when I finally went back to my computer, i was at 3 pages already, and it was the middle of the conversation and I had no way to round it off well without going on for another 3 pages. Thus, this chapter ends abruptly as crap. whatever. 
> 
> Anyway, I've devised approximately how the fic will end, so this might actually be my first multichapter fic that i actually finish. Fear not, however, because I have no idea how long its going to take. it shouldntbe more than ten more chapters but i have no idea. I'll give you guys a heads up when I know approximately how long this things gunna be.
> 
> As always, I love reviews and crud. Feel free to let me know how ya feel and junk and I'll probably reply to ur review. 
> 
> Holy crap this note is long. See ya next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which conversations continue and Grunkle Stan doesn't care about magic.

Pacifica looked to Dipper for an explanation. She didn’t really know how much he wanted his Great Uncle to know, especially because she would have lied if her parents had been the ones asking. 

 

“We were looking for the stream and we got lost. So, we camped out for the night and found our way back.”

 

Okay, so it was somewhere in the middle. A half-truth. 

 

“Pacifica’s a girl scout, so I’m sure they spent all night _ cuddling by the fire _ ,” Mabel said in a way that was way more suggestive than it should have been. 

 

“We were  _ not _ cuddling by the fire. I’ll have you know,  _ I _ slept in a tree, away from the dirty ground,” Pacifica cut in.

 

“Could’a fooled me.” Stan gestured at her body. “You look like shi- poop. You too, Kid. You look like you got in a fight with waddles in his mud puddle.”

 

Pacifica looked down and realized just how dirty she was. Her dress was torn and covered in dirt and leaves, and she hadn’t even noticed before now. 

 

“Ew. I need a shower,” Pacifica said and instantly regretted it, as Mabel sent a tidal wave of a splash at her. “That’s not what I meant.”

 

“I know.” Mabel giggled and went back underwater to stick her tongue out at her playfully. 

 

“We should definitely get clean, though. If you want to go first, I’m fine with waiting,” Dipper offered. 

 

Pacifica didn’t want to be rude. It wasn’t her house, and she’d already imposed on them so much. 

 

“No, it’s alright. You can go first.” Pacifica swore she saw a pink tinge on Dipper’s cheeks.

 

“Well, you guys aren’t taking one together,” Stan cut in, “so make up your minds and one of you get clean already.”

 

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Dipper reasoned. He shrugged and walked off to the bathroom. 

 

“Looks like it’s just us three now!” Mabel waved her hands in the air and then started blowing bubbles on the surface of the water. 

 

“Alright, what really happened?” Stan stared Pacifica down and she shrunk back a little. 

 

“Um, nothing. We just camped out.”

 

“Bullcrap. You guys are all beat up and you look like you’ve been through hell.” He inched his face closer and somehow made it even more scary. “Now if I tried to interrogate Dipper right now, he’d probably be halfway to town before I even got to the first question, but you seem a little better off. So. What. Happened.”

 

Pacifica swallowed uncomfortably. “We ran into a monster and got separated running for our lives. I had a terrible night reminiscent of  _ The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,  _ and I almost died like three times.”

 

“The girl who what now?” Stan scratched his head in confusion. 

 

“It’s a horror novel about a girl getting trapped in the woods. Monsters chase her and she almost dies a few times,” Pacifica explained duly. 

 

“Oh, oh! I know that one!” Mabel interrupted. “There’s a pop-up book!”

 

Pacifica sighed. “Yeah, okay. Analogy wasted. The point was that it was scary and I don’t want to try again anytime soon.”

 

“So you’re telling me you guys got chased by monsters, almost  _ died _ , and spent most of the night running away like you were in a horror movie?” Stan stared incredulously at Pacifica and she slowly nodded. Stan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Ugh. No more late night escapades without a chaperone.”

 

“Oh! Can I chaperone?” Mabel cut in, completely misreading the mood. 

 

“You’re stuck in a fishbowl, Mabel. You wouldn’t exactly be a good chaperone,” Pacifica said, actually kind of relieved that Stan didn’t flip out. “We have to find the cure, though, and Dipper is probably the only person who can figure it out.”

 

“Well you kids aren’t going out into the woods again any time soon.” Stan stared Pacifica down with his glowing, terrifying eyes, and she realized that he’d looked into her eyes without going into a trance. 

 

“Oh my god,” she whispered. “How are you doing that?”

 

Stan blinked a few times, confused. “Doing what?”

 

Pacifica just looked over at Mabel and actually looked her in the eyes for the first time in the conversation. Mabel’s eyes glossed over and her jaw went slack. 

 

“See? When I lock eyes with someone, they get hypnotized. But you’re immune or something!”

 

Stan just shrugged. “Not the first weird thing to happen today. Can you fix Mabel?”

 

Pacifica snapped her fingers, but never took her eyes off Stan. “Come on, aren’t you at least a little curious?”

 

“No,” Stan deadpanned. Mabel mumbled confusedly in the background.  

 

“You’re telling me you’re a living statue and you don’t even want to know anything about how that works? You’re the thing I’ve seen that doesn’t go into a trance!”

 

“Yeah, that’s nice.” Stan scratched inside his ear. “But I don’t wanna know anything more about this stupid magic crap than I need to.”

 

Pacifica groaned. “You’re ridiculous.” 

 

“He’s not ridiculous,” Mabel cut in, “I’m ridiculous!” She stuck her tongue out and made “waaa” noises with a big smile.

 

“Ugh, whatever.”

 

Dipper chose this moment to walk on out.

  
“Hey guys, what’d I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.  
> I get distracted easily. The only way to get me to remember is apparently by commenting, cause i literally finished this chapter (apart from like 5 lines) almost a month ago. I just also forgot it existed.
> 
> Sorry. No idea when the next chapter will be cause it honestly only takes me like 2 or 3 days to write them, but i have to remember to write in order for that to be true. Whatever. 
> 
> All you guys are awesome, though, cause I've kept this fic up a LOT longer than any other fic I've written, and it's all thanks to the kudos and comments and stuff and this shit keeps me going :) Thank you!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mabel throws a party.

“You’re grounded.” Grunkle Stan pointed a clawed finger at Dipper for extra emphasis. “No more going out in the woods without an adult.”

 

“Sorry,” Pacifica mumbled. Dipper just stared Stan down. 

 

“No offense, Grunkle Stan, but we need to find the cure for all this stuff as soon as possible. You can’t just stop me from looking for it.”

 

Stan sighed. “Dipper. I can’t just let you waltz into the woods all willy nilly now that you’re a whiny pissbaby that runs away at the snap of a twig. You know that I want to be back to normal more than anyone, but if you die out there, no one’s gunna turn back, and I’d rather be a monster statue for a couple days than for forever.”

 

Dipper bit his lip and then took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. We’ll give it a break. At least until we have a solid plan to find and study the stream.”

 

“And a way to keep in contact with home. I damn well near had a heart attack last night.”

 

Mabel cut in. “Walkie talkies!” She pulled a pair of bright pink walkie talkies out of god knows where and shoved one into Dipper’s hand. 

 

“Mabel, I’m pretty sure the range on this thing is half a mile at best.” Dipper examined the toy and turned it on. A static sounded from it. It worked, at least. 

 

“We could still use it between us if we get lost, right?” Pacifica offered. Mabel shoved the other one in her hand and Pacifica looked at it. “How old are these? They’re disgusting.”

 

Mabel shrugged. “I dunno. I got em at a yard sale!”

 

“Ew.” Pacifica placed the walkie on the table delicately. 

 

“Didn’t you sleep in a tree? Why’s some old toy grossing you out?” Stan asked.

 

“That was under dire circumstances. I was a little too terrified to be disgusted.” Besides, she’d been disgusted anyway. The thought of what she ate out there came back to her and she almost gagged.

 

“With the walkies, you guys can be less terrified and more disgusted!” Mabel chimed in. 

 

“I would rather be neither,” Pacifica said.

 

“Then come have a monster party with me and Soos!”

 

“What?” Dipper asked. Everyone looked at Mabel like she had three heads. What did any of this have to do with a party?

 

“Grunkle Stan, can I throw a party?”

 

“No. There’s no way I’m letting a bunch of people that are already angry at me into my house unsupervised.”

 

“We can supervise them!”

 

“No. If Pacifica wants to hang around, that’s fine, but no parties.”

 

“Wait. I can stay the night?” The thought of not having to go home to her parents and have them see her like this brought a smile to her face.

 

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Stan waved his hand dismissively and turned to exit. “Now I’ve got some tours to set up. This place doesn’t run itself.”

 

“Everyone’s a monster, and you’ve still got tourists who want tours?” Dipper looked unconvinced.

 

“Yeah!” Mabel replied, before Stan could, “I helped Grunkle Stan put fake zippers on and stuff so it looks like he’s a fake monster!”

 

“This place could be in some weird-apocalypse, and I’m sure there would still be tourists to give tours to.” Stan grabbed his cane and walked out into the gift shop. “Don’t kill each other, or whatever.”

 

Pacifica took a deep breath. “That worked out a lot better than I was expecting.”

 

“Yeah, Grunkle Stan is like that a lot. So do you guys wanna have a Monster Sleepover?” Mabel leaned as far over her tank as was possible without tipping it.

 

“What exactly does a ‘Monster Sleepover’ entail?” Dipper asked. Mabel shrugged.

 

“I dunno. We can do the same things as a normal sleepover, but with monster twists!”

 

Pacifica shrugged. “Sure. I’d be up for it.”

 

Dipper looked down at the journal for a moment. “I suppose it might be a good idea, to see what kind of differences our new forms have, besides the obvious ones.”

 

Mabel pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! Let the monster festivities begin!” She then grabbed a paddle from inside her tank and started paddling her wagon to the living room. Dipper and Pacifica followed close behind her.

 

They all found comfy spots in the living room and Dipper raised a hand like he was in class or something.

 

“So what exactly are we planning on doing with the fact that we’re monsters now? I know you said ‘monster twists’, but what do you actually want to do?”

 

“We could play around with any powers we might have! Like a show and tell!”

 

“Yeah, but we don’t really know all the abilities we have. I’m the only one with any encyclopedic knowledge about monsters, and a lot of it is uncertain information. Any amount of it could be untrue.”

 

Mabel thought for moment and then her face lit up in epiphany. “We can play Dare or Monster Dare!”

 

“What is that supposed to be?” Pacifica asked.

 

“It’s like truth or dare, but we choose between a dare or trying to do a monster power!”

 

“Why wouldn’t we just play Monster Dare then? Wouldn’t it be easier if we just took turns coming up with weird powers to try and we all tried to do them? That way we can figure out all the possibilities. If only one of us tries something, then we wouldn’t know if the others could do it.” Dipper said. 

 

“Ugh, fine.” Mabel stuck her tongue out in mock-anger. “Who goes first?”

 

“Dipper should go first. He knows the most, after all.”

 

“Well, I actually think we should start by explaining what we know about ourselves so far. For example, I’m a lot faster and more agile now. I also obviously have an issue with flight response, and I have heightened hearing abilities, which make it really  

unnerving to be just about anywhere. All the little creaks in this house are driving me insane.” Dipper explained. “Oh, and I only got to see one for like a second, but I think I can understand deer.”

 

“Okay! Me next!” Mabel raised her hand like she was in a classroom. “I can breathe in water or air, but if I get too dry, my skin gets all peely and I feel like a raisin. Plus I have a tail!” She flopped her tail around in the water to punctuate her point.

 

“Okay, um.” Pacifica tried to catalogue everything she’d learned so far in her head. “I put people in trances if I look into their eyes, and if they’re in a trance, I can sort of control them? Oh, and I have this weird infrared vision thing I can do.”

 

“Oooo! What do I look like in infrared?” Mabel asked excitedly.

 

Pacifica smiled and closed her eyes before facing Mabel and sucking in a deep breath. When she saw a bright green blob in the shape of Mabel, she said, “A big green fish blob.”

 

Mabel pouted. “I wanna see in infrared!” 

 

“Why don’t you try it?” Dipper cut in. “Some fish can see in infrared.”

 

Mabel’s face lit up. “Ooo! How do you do it, Pacifica?”

 

“I just close my eyes and I take a deep breath through my nose.” 

 

Mabel smiled wide and closed her eyes. “Okay!” She took several big breaths through her nose, and after three times she opened her eyes and blew a raspberry at Pacifica. “No fair.”

 

“Well I can’t breathe underwater, so I think we’re even.”

 

“Actually, some snakes are aquatic, but I think that’s an ability we can’t really test,”  Dipper said. 

 

“Yeah, I don’t think I want to risk drowning.”

 

“Ooh! But maybe we can test out Dipper’s animal talking power! I wanna talk to fish,” Mabel said. “Mermando spoke Dolphin! Maybe I can speak Dolphin!” She proceeded to make a dolphin noise. 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pacifica asked. 

 

“I don’t know! That's the magic of it!” Mabel said, waving her arms to punctuate her point. “Can you talk to snakes?”

 

“I don’t think so… There was this one snake that just slithered right over me, though. It was like he was just comfortable around me or something.”

 

“That’s actually really odd. A lot of snakes will eat other, smaller snakes,” Dipper said. “They don’t usually get along.”

 

“Maybe I’m just that non-threatening,” Pacifica mused. 

 

“Maybe you can make world peace amongst the snakes,” Mabel said. “Or maybe The General will have a massive snake army at his disposal!”

 

“But how would it fare against my army of deer?” Dipper joked. 

 

“Massive casualties on both sides,” Mabel said dramatically. 

 

“They would both fall to Mabel’s dolphin army,” Pacifica said. 

 

“Dipdop, is there any cool powers mermaids have in the journal?” Mabel asked. “Can I really command Dolphins to do my bidding?”

 

“Uh, there's not really much in the journals. The page on mermaids says “half human, half fish” and “hates humans” and that's pretty much it.”

 

Mabel frowned and blowed bubbles into her water dissapointedly.

 

“Well, what about mythologically? Mermaids have been in myths and stuff for forever. What did the myths say?” Pacifica asked.

 

“I mean, I’m not really up to date on all the mythology, but maybe Mabel could try singing a siren’s song.”

 

Mabel popped back up out of the water. “Sing? I love singing!” She turned to Pacifica. “What should I sing?”

 

Pacifica shrugged. If Mabel sang anything like how she sung at that party, it didn’t really matter what song she picked. “Whatever you feel like.”

 

Mabel took a deep breath-

 

And then they were in the kitchen. 

 

Pacifica blinked.

 

“What just happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry about the very, very long wait on this chapter. I really forgot that it existed (over and over again) and when I remembered, I would go back and realize i had hit writers block and then never write anything and then forget again. 
> 
> This repeated itself over and over and over. 
> 
> I would promise another chapter soon, but I don't really know if its going to happen again, so just endlessly nag me and I'll eventually get to it haha
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter! Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments :)
> 
> PS: Special thanks to Grig9700 for actually getting me to write this again!


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